Guest View: Bill would clear way for Meditech project

Monday

Oct 31, 2011 at 12:01 AM

On Wednesday, Oct. 26, the board of directors of the Fall River Area Chamber of Commerce and Industry voted to endorse and support Massachusetts Senate Bill 2113 regarding the regulation of the Massachusetts Historical Commission's oversight of properties that are only on the State Historic Register. Passage of this bill will allow for the construction of the Meditech project within the Riverfront Business Park in the town of Freetown.

JASON M. RUA

On Wednesday, Oct. 26, the board of directors of the Fall River Area Chamber of Commerce and Industry voted to endorse and support Massachusetts Senate Bill 2113 regarding the regulation of the Massachusetts Historical Commission's oversight of properties that are only on the State Historic Register. Passage of this bill will allow for the construction of the Meditech project within the Riverfront Business Park in the town of Freetown.

For several decades, our region and the commonwealth have been working toward diversifying the economy. Through the hard work of countless individuals, elected officials, organizations, agencies and educational institutions, the life sciences industry is finally thriving within the commonwealth and the SouthCoast. But today, it is at a crossroads.

Meditech is an integrated software solution company based in this state. They wish to expand by constructing a second SouthCoast facility not far from their other location, a 120,000-square-foot facility that currently employs 500 workers on Martine Street in Fall River. The highly anticipated expansion project was to be a $65-70 million multi-story 180,000-square-foot medical records facility constructed within the Riverfront Business Park in Freetown. No government funds or local tax incentives were used or sought for the project. Once the construction is completed, the new facility would employ an additional 825 individuals in the SouthCoast region. Keep in mind that Fall River has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state.

Meditech proposed to only disturb 21 acres, while donating 117 acres to the Trustees of the Reservation for open space preservation. By midsummer, all local and state permitting issues had been satisfactorily addressed. All that remained was an approval from the Massachusetts Historical Commission.

To the detriment of 825 jobs, the MHC overextended their regulatory authority to include privately held industrial property not listed on the state or federal historic register. Why is MHC holding the line on Meditech when they previously allowed Stop & Shop to construct a 1.3-million square foot distribution center on the 158 acres that abuts the Meditech site? The nature of the contradiction requires explanation.

The parcel at issue has a long history of commercial, agricultural and industrial use. Public documents confirm that the 138-acre commercial parcel is zoned as industrial. Records also demonstrate that the property has never been listed on either the national or state historic registers. For decades, commercial crops such as corn and hay were cultivated and harvested on this site. It was also used as commercial dairy farm operation where topsoil was repeatedly overturned.

In more recent years, the parcel was part of a tract of industrial land that had been home to the Algonquin Gasification Plant. Algonquin was a synthetic natural gas processing plant that produced an additive on site that was mixed into natural gas so as to give it an odor making it become more detectable. Photographs from the 1970s and before clearly display a long history of processed natural gas being stored in massive tanks on site that held up to 268,000 barrels each. Ten or more 90,000-gallon propane gas tanks were also submerged throughout the property. Furthermore, underground piping was trenched and laid for the purpose of delivering processed natural gas to communities north of Freetown.

Equally concerning is the silence stemming from both the MHC and the Office of the Secretary of State. Both agencies have repeatedly refused to answer the inquiries of business leaders, elected officials and other concerned citizens. Calls from the Chamber have been placed on hold indefinitely on numerous occasions. Such action from state government officials is not defensible, particularly when a Massachusetts business has been prevented from creating 825 jobs on fully permitted industrial land.

The loss of the Meditech project will unravel decades of economic development. As a last resort, the SouthCoast legislative delegation recently introduced S2113, a bill that clarifies the role of the MHC that will remove the regulatory impediments that have effectively terminated the Meditech project. With so many people looking for employment in the commonwealth, this scenario cannot ever be repeated.

The Meditech project must be salvaged.

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